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Alma: A Tale of Violence

For five years, Alma belonged to one of the most violent gangs in Guatemala City. She has committed murder, battery, and brutality. Brutalized herself, she has been jailed many times. With 18 murders a day, Guatemala is a country undermined by violence. Alma is typical of her generation, where youths grow up in a world in which laws and justice are flouted with impunity. Families mired in poverty, despair, and alcoholism destroy each other in gang warfare that has become an ordinary way of life – and death.

Alma: A Tale of Violence

For five years, Alma belonged to one of the most violent gangs in Guatemala City. She has committed murder, battery, and brutality. Brutalized herself, she has been jailed many times.

With 18 murders a day, Guatemala is a country undermined by violence. Alma is typical of her generation, where youths grow up in a world in which laws and justice are flouted with impunity. Families mired in poverty, despair, and alcoholism destroy each other in gang warfare that has become an ordinary way of life – and death.

She was sentenced to death by her 'homies' the day she wanted to quit the gang. Yet she survived the bullets. Although she will never walk again, she is striving to rebuild her life.